The death knell for genuinely affordable housing

The death knell for genuinely affordable housing

Whatever Westminster talking heads might say, the most important event for Labour last year was not Jeremy Corbyn winning the leadership election but Labour losing the general election. So now we must show voters that our priority is the challenges they face, rather than internal Labour party debates. There is no more important target than …

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18 thoughts on “The death knell for genuinely affordable housing

  1. An opinion: It was ‘nulabor’ that started the process of destroying all social housing in 1998 with its intention ‘to get out of the property market’. What followed was the creation of ALMOs – seen as a helf-way stage to full-scale privatisation. One EU opinion is that the UK’s council housing is interfering in the property market. By shedding council housing, ‘nulabor’ could take over £100bn off-balance-sheet and create a PSBR illusion to the EU. During the tenure of ‘nulabor’ all property policies were for Market Regeneration, NOT the construction of new council housing. So now we are where we are, with tories completing the ‘nulabor’ agenda of nearly 20 years ago. Surely, under Corbyn, the only humanitarian position is to reverse the obscenities and launch full-speed into a massive council housing construction project.


    • Sorry Mal, I forgot.
      But there is a way to get behind the paywall.
      Use google to search on the title, of:
      “UK ministers slammed for widening ‘affordable housing’ definition”
      it will find it and the second line of the entry will say>Companies>Financials followed by a equilateral triangle pointing downwards,
      click on that triangle
      a box saying Cached will appear, click on it.
      I’ll send rik a screen cap of the article later tonight.


  2. “massive council housing construction project” WHY ?. Why should certain members of the public have cheap rents. I have had to struggle for years to pay my house off. Why is it that I have to save up and fore go holidays if I want a new kitchen, when Council tennent`s get theirs for free every so many years. Why should I have to scrape money together to afford new windows, when they get them for free. And before anyone says because they are poor and dont have any money, Ask why some are able to go on holiday and probably earn more than me.


    • S. Thornton,
      You ask “Why”
      My answer is that UK has a systemic failure in housing provision, this is probably because we do not have a regulated rental market.

      My experience:

      In 1970, I was working in Crawley New Town and (because of my relatively high income, I was offered an apartment in a delighful gardened block of apartments, The rent I paid reflected the cost of building it. (If my income had been lower, I would have been offered a house in another less prestigious part of town.)

      In 1991, I moved myself and family to Basel, Switzerland for 4 years, and rented a delightful apartment up in the hills South of Basel, and whilst it was privately owned, my rent was controlled, and re-assessed annually based on the cost of borrowing.
      (That is one of the many reasons why only some 32% of Swiss own their own homes, and the German rates are not much higher.)

      What I find quite wrong about your post, is that you are seeing things purely in terms of “me” and “them”, it isn’t.

      I personally don’t care who builds homes for rental, as long as the rents are controlled to give just a fair return for the investment.
      (In Switzerland, insurance companies contract out the building of a lot of the rental housing, in UK Insurance companies invest in house building companies. – there is difference.

      Sorry for the rant!
      .(after Crawley, I have always owned a house in UK, but mainly worked outside UK – so I’ve seen the way quite a few countries handle housing, and I’m ashamed of the state we are in here in UK.)


    • Council tenants get “their” new kitchens and windows for free. What utter garbage. They are only renting the properties. the new kitchens and windows belong to the owner- the council. Do you expect them to pay rent and also maintain a property that belongs to some one else. As for cheap rents, it may have escaped your notice, but for several years now there has been large, real terms rent increases for council housing. in 2013 Rotherham council’s rent increase was the highest in the country. We are in the mess we are in because both the Tories and Labour for years did not build any where near enough social housing and the mass immigration that both parties have encouraged has exacerbated the problem.


      • well said Mal!
        I hope you read the ft article – it is well worth the read.
        all the recent Tory meddling with the housing market are just making it worse.


  3. RR; I read the article as soon as Rik put it up. It’s very contentious.The Right to Buy is to be extended to Housing Association tenants funded by the sale of council housing elsewhere. What I’m not clear about is will they also get the same discount as council tenants.
    New council tenants only being given tenancies for a maximum of five years. Presumably this is to make it easier to evict them. Can you make long term plans to live in area if there’s the possibility you will not be living there after five years. What will be the criteria for terminating someone’s tenancy?


  4. What about all the low lifes that have never done a days work in their lives and never will who are living free on benefits in housing paid by tax payers. Yet young working couples with children cannot get a council house for all the scroungers. The system is all wrong,give working people the council house’s who will be paying rent and all the scroungers can go and live in a field in the middle of nowhere and smoke and drink their cans of lager together


  5. Whoa! Rather harsh comments from Time for a change.

    You can apply for Housing Benefit whether you’re unemployed or working.

    Back on topic……………
    Most people’s definition of ‘affordable housing’ in these here parts is probably in the range £80k-£120k. If the government ignored mainstream builders and looked at modular homes(Which have higher thermal values than brick built homes) it is quite possible and feasible to build a 2 bedroom home for approximately £18k and a 3 bedroom home for £25k (at cost) and each one can be erected in a week.(Google is your friend)
    None of the major building companies will be satisfied with just a 10% markup on these types of homes therefore the government has a golden opportunity to encourage small building companies and people interested in self-build to unleash a major national housebuilding programme which could, if managed properly see between 100,000/200,000 new homes built every year provided land is available.
    Alternatively the government could and should IMV undertake to provide councils with short-term loans or grants to buy up the estimated 870,000 empty homes in the UK and enough empty commercial property to create 420,000 new homes.


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